Eight-Layer Dip

Since I've been doing a lot of cooking lately, and the Superbowl was a long time ago, I thought I'd post my eight-layer dip recipe.  I meant to post it the weekend of the superbowl when I made it, but time ran away from me.  Also, this blog has kind of landed on the back burner after my reading and book blogging.  But life is still good.  The food's great!  Anyways, here's the recipe now.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 cups shredded lettuce (I typically just grab one bag of shredded lettuce from the store)
• 1 9-oz can bean dip (in the chip aisle)
• 1/4 cup picante or taco sauce (I get this ingredient in a weird and obscure way explained later)
• 1 6-oz avocado dip (or if you're me, fresh guacamole from the store works)
• 1 8-oz sour cream
• 1 cup shredded cheddar or taco cheese (just pick your favorite cheese and use it)
• 1/4 cup sliced green onions
• 2 tbsp sliced pitted ripe olives (or a whole small can if you like olives - I do!)
• 2/3 cup chopped, seeded tomato (basically a medium tomato because the more the merrier, right?)
• chips (well duh!)

Preparation:

1. Arrange lettuce on a serving platter.  My serving platter looks like a 2.2 qt pyrex dish (because I'm hip like that).  If you'd rather use a 3 qt dish, double the recipe.  
2. Combine bean dip and picante sauce.  Now personally, I don't use picante sauce (because Jared dislikes picante sauce).  So how do I come up with a 1/4 cup of taco sauce when I've never seen taco sauce at stores?  I buy the tack seasoning packets and mix in the amount of water on the package directions.  Then I use 1/4 cup of that mixture for my taco sauce.  And guess what?  It works!  (Note: if you use too much water in your weird taco sauce mixture, the bottom of your serving platter can get a little moist.)  Now back to the preparation spread bean dip/picante sauce over lettuce.
3. Layer the avocado dip on top of the bean/picante dip.
4. Layer the sour cream on top of the avocado dip.
5. Top with cheese, green onions, and olives.  If you're me, then the sour cream is hidden after all the cheese, onions, and olives that get dumped on the dip.
6. Cover and chill for 4-24 hours.  Why?  Because I said so.
7. Before serving, chop the tomato and sprinkle it on top of the dip (now everything's hidden by tomatoes - if you prepare this dip like me).
8. Eat with chips.  Try to eat more than your husband who maybe likes the dip a little more than you'd like (because it's gone before you know it).

Ready

I think I'm ready for life to happen now.  I hate thinking about the major milestones in life, and how I'm still waiting for mine to come.  One day I'll have a house.  And one day I'll have kids.  Et cetera.

But I want a house now...  We went and talked to a mortgage broker on Friday.  Pretty much we have everything in order other than the fact that our employment is still listed as contract positions.  We have the down payment ready, but we have to wait until our employment status goes to permanent.  And thanks to the economy, that could take anywhere from six months to two years.  Ugh, I'm sick of waiting.

Anyways, other than that disappointment in my life, things have been good.  I cut about three to seven inches off two weeks ago (I got it re-layered - because it used to be layered at one point).  I dyed my hair a week ago.  Jared is growing his hair out because I told him to.  We're considering getting another Yorkie.  And my birthday's coming up.  Oh boy, I'm getting old.  I still hold to the fact that you stop aging after 21.  You always think, "I can't wait until I'm 21."  And then it happens, and you just don't care for the fact that your age continues along afterwards...  Oh well.  I'm still excited because it will be the first day in a very long time that Jared and I will have off together.  That's right, I will see Jared's lovely face for about 16 hours give or take a few.

So here's to life happening (and hopefully faster than anticipated because I'm impatient)...

Before dye job.  Hair is a lighter brown.

After dye job.  My hair has a redder tint and is a little darker.  (You really can't tell it's been dyed from the pictures because I tend to pick similar colors.)  Can you also tell that I have no makeup on in this one?

And one of Jared (because I can).  Yes, he might kill me for posting it.  But it's proof that his hair is longer than usual...